Nestle Logo: History, Design, and Transformation
One of the remarkable things about well-established logos is that after a time, they become part of the background. Like a familiar piece of furniture in your home. You may use it every day but don’t actively register its presence. The iconic Nestle logo has achieved a very similar status of prominence. You can find it all around you, yet may not fully recall all its details.
This article aims to rectify that. We will take you on a journey through 19th-century Switzerland, where it all started. We will use Nestlé’s logo redesigns as our guideposts to track brand milestones and chart its course through history.
Overview of the Nestle Brand
The Nestle brand was born in 1867 in the small town of Vevey, Switzerland. It was the brainchild of Henri Nestle, a German-born Swiss pharmacist who loved experimenting with new ideas. As a serial entrepreneur, he tried developing several consumer products — mineral water, liquid gas, vinegar, fertilizers, and more.
The success, however, came with Farine Lactee, a milk substitute for young babies who couldn’t take breastmilk. The baby formula was created to combat the raging infant mortality rates in the country and consisted of wheat flour, cow’s milk, and sugar.
The product was revolutionary and gained instant success — as Henri Nestle had predicted: My infant cereal has a tremendous future because there is no food to compare with it.
As a passionate entrepreneur, Henri Nestle recognized the importance of powerful branding. Around the same time, he started using his family’s coat of arms — a shield with a bird nest — as the official logo for his newfound brand. The company kept making and selling Farine Lactee under the Nestle brand for several years till 1875 and later sold it to three local businessmen in Vevey. They merged the company with Anglo-Swiss — a rival dairy product company — in 1905, and the world’s first global dairy conglomerate, Nestle & Anglo-Swiss Milk Company, was born.
Over the years, Nestle has acquired many businesses, brands, and products. It has also developed and perfected several others under its own name, and the effort has resulted in Nestle’s reach in 186 countries, where it sells more than 2000 brands and hundreds of food-related products. These include milk, water, juices, cereals, chocolates, baked goods, frozen foods, instant foods, pet care, and many more.
History of the Nestle Logo
Nestlé has changed its logo several times over its 150-year history. Seven versions are known today, and they are almost identical, with only minor changes. The logo has evolved from a complex design with many details to a simpler and clearer one.
The roots of the Nestle logo meet with the lineage of Henri Nestle himself. His original logo design was a rendition of his family’s coat of arms, containing a bird sitting inside a nest. Drawing parallels with bird symbolism of new beginnings, hope, and courage, the design must have seemed perfect to him, and to his brand successors later as the symbol has remained intact throughout its history.
In the next section, we’ll discuss Nestle’s logo evolution and its redesign timeline from 1866 to the present.
Evolution of the Nestle Logo
Like all good logo designs, Nestle’s logo is timeless. Thanks to Neslte’s marketing and because it’s a global brand, the Nestle logo is recognized worldwide. Since the design has not deviated too much from its roots, it has achieved classic status, helping improve the brand prestige of being a steadfast and reliable name in the market.
Here is a look at the Nestle logo evolution timeline.
• 1866-1868
The Henri Nestle brand emerges on the scene. The logo looks like a family seal, complete with a shield with a helmed knight sitting atop it. You can see two luxuriant feathers attached to his helmet. It’s all very grand and proper. Right in the middle of the shield is a bird in a nest.
The nest is symbolic as the name Nestle translates to ‘nest’ in German. The company would use the shield logo for only two years before swapping it for a much simpler design.
• 1868-1938
The shield was dropped and the little nest was given center stage in design. It was a pretty detailed drawing with a nest, branches, leaves, birds, shadows, and more.
The huge difference in the design change came with the addition of three little chicks in the logo. The original bird was a mom bird now, feeding its three babies inside the brand’s nest. The symbolism wasn’t lost on anybody, and the connection of feeding the little chicks was instantly drawn with the food and nutritional value that Nestle was bringing to its consumers.
This design would remain Nestle’s primary logo image for nearly 70 years. It outlived the brand founder, Nestle’s merging with Anglo-Swiss, and the transformation of this merger into a single solidified Nestle global brand.
• 1938-1966
This is the first time that the brand name Nestle appears alongside the logo. Right on top of it, in fact.
The typeface was large, thick, and dominating. It was also huge and in a much darker shade of black so it kind of blocked the nest from the view.
The now-iconic nest also went through some design revisions. Shadowing was reduced and the birds were made sleeker. The overall effect of the logo redesign was positive and the appearance of the wordmark gave Nestle more flexibility in branding and marketing. If the space was too crowded for the nest symbol, the typeface was now there to represent the brand.
• 1966-1984
1966 celebrates one hundred years of Nestle, and the company released a modified version of its brand logo containing a simpler font and a modernized image.
The typeface is now thinner than before, though the serifs are more pronounced. The nest is also bigger. You can notice the difference because unlike the cramped imagery before, the birds are in a wider view now, though still partially blocked. The nest also looks more streamlined, the remaining shadows are further removed, and the branch has been smoothed down.
• 1988-1995
The logoz redesign this time is part of a much larger strategy. Nestle standardizes its product categories and creates an umbrella trademark for its official branding.
The nest logo once again goes through changes. We only have two young birds now instead of three. The drawing is simplified, and the symbol looks cleaner than ever. Nestle’s custom sans serif typeface is placed underneath the nest symbol in the line art form.
The acute accent over the small case ‘e’ is given a unique style. Instead of hovering over the letter, it is now part of the large horizontal line that leads from Nestle’s N and covers the entire typeface.
The modern look is meant to usher Nestle into the new millennia with a neat and refined logo.
• 1995-2015
The 1995 revision in the Nestle logo is heralded by two major changes in the design. The typeface is now filled in with dark black ink and the nest symbol has gone through another minimalist turn.
There are even fewer strokes and contours in the nest now and the bird drawings are radically simplified.
1995 was also the year when Nestle released specific Nestle lettering for each of its various product categories. Baby milk products are designed with white and blue branding. Its mineral water products are sold with a white typeface. Chocolate categories are promoted with a white Nestle wordmark, a swish underneath, and placed on top of a balloon-like button.
These distinctions are meant to give each category a new branding that’s still connected with the larger Nestle umbrella.
• 2015-2018
As digital devices become more common among consumers, Nestle releases a modified brand logo that’s created to present the brand in digital environments.
The dark black color in the logo is softened down by a few shades. The nest symbol also has fewer lines but the birds are thicker now. The purpose is to create a look that isn’t hard to display on smaller digital screens.
• 2018-The present day
In 2018, Nestle let go of its black and grey logo in favor of a warm, oaky brown. The rest of the design remains the same which makes the color change all the more noticeable.
Key Elements of the Nestle Logo Design
Here is a quick recap of the major components of the Nestle logo.
• Icon: The Bird Nest
The Nestle logomark is a nest with two baby chicks in it. The mother bird is feeding its young as the little ones open their beaks wide. The symbolism is brilliant and Nestle couldn’t ask for a better brand image. It speaks of food, an act of service (feeding), health, nutrition, care, and community.
For a world-leading food and beverage company committed to individual, family, and community health, this logo mark is bang on the buck.
• Colors: Warm Brown and White
The color combinations in the logo have traveled from a rich black to a warm brown. The neutral white has always delivered consistency to the design.
The current color palette of the brand in brown and white makes Nestle appear friendlier, more approachable, and warm. It’s a color palette that’s close to nature and inspires trust.
• Typeface: A Custom Font
The Nestle logo has always used a custom typeface. It used to be a thick serif font but now we have a cleaner Nestle in a sans serif typeface.
The closest logo font you can find would be a variation of Helvetica. Helvetica Bold or Helvetica Bold Rounded are given as popular alternatives.
• Brand Emotions: Nutrition & Nurture
Brand emotions are the feelings that a target audience associates with them. Some of these emotions develop over time, while some are embedded into the brand’s very identity. Nike’s logo, for example, has developed its brand association with courage and strength over time. But the Nestle logo, featuring a bird feeding its young, has an instant connection with nutrition and nurturing.
Nestle, through its products and CSR work, tries hard to establish the brand emotions of being a caring, trustworthy, and reliable business entity.
• Brand Slogan: Good Food, Good Life
Brand slogans help you communicate what you stand for in the simplest way possible. Since they carry the literal brand message in a short, single line, brand slogans are considered key components of a wider brand identity.
Nestle has been using the ‘Good Food, Good Life’ slogan for the past many years. It is short and clear and establishes the strong natural connection between nutrient-rich food and a healthy life.
Your Best Questions About The Nestle Logo Answered:
• Who designed the Nestle logo?
Nestle credits its founder Henri Nestle as the designer of its very first logo. Since the logo was based on Henri Nestle’s family crest, the claim makes sense. Since then, the Nestle logo has gone through several, though minor, alterations over the years.
• What was the original logo of Nestle?
The original Nestle logo consisted of a shield emblem with a bird on a nest right in the middle of it. The shield had a helmed knight on top of it, with two large feathers protruding from the cap. It was the design of Henri Nestle’s family coat of arms and served as the inspiration for Nestle’s first brand logo.
• Why did Nestle change their logo?
Nestle went through several periods of modernization during its 150-year history. Keeping up with the times and communicating its scientific excellence, the company kept making minor iterations of its iconic nest logo.
The latest redesign — changing the color palette from rich dark to warm brown — is meant to create a friendlier Nestle logo that looks more approachable and caring.
• What are the elements of the Nestle logo?
Nestle’s official brand logo is a combination mark, consisting of both a symbol and a wordmark. Its key elements are its brown and white color palette, a custom font, and a unique slogan — Good Food, Good Life.
The slogan doesn’t always accompany the brand logo on the products. You usually see it in advertisements, both in print and digital.
• What is the concept of the Nestle logo?
Nestle works with a highly meaningful symbol in its brand imagery. Using a bird feeding its chicks as its prime mark, Nestle communicates its promise of creating and developing healthy food products for the world.
Overall, the Nestlé logo concept revolves around trust, quality, and the company’s heritage in the food and beverage industry.
Concluding
The Nestle logo is one of the most widely recognized symbols in the world. While so many of its peers have experimented with their visual heritage, Nestle has remained steadfast in its original identity. Using an image that directly conveys an act of love and service, Nestle keeps strengthening its positive brand recall in the global conscience.
For designers interested in learning how timeless brand identities are created, Nestle has some great lessons to share. We hope through this article you’ve come across a few of them. If we could leave you with one takeaway, it would to be focus on the underlying emotion you want to invoke through the imagery.
If that emotion is an inherent part of the brand, you’ll be able to create brand visuals that remain relevant and meaningful for all the time to come.